It is that time of year in the library industry where old records, subscriptions and such wrap up and new ones crop up....
Another one of those things that is good in *theory* but not in practice.... at least it doesn't work *quite* that way in the world of serials.
Our library is now receiving January, February and March 2009 issues for some of our magazines....conversely, we just received one with the cover chronology of 2006.
Last week I received one with a cover chronology of 1999... What this means is that we've now paid for all of the extra years of those journals that have yet to be published and *hope* that they are published at some point.
Usually after 5 or 6 years our vendor puts a note on the relevant title "order when current" and merely holds on to the funds instead of sending them to the publisher. However, that has a problem all of its own. If the vendor does not realize that Journal XYZ has resumed publication (as they are wont to do) or has combined a bunch of years into one volume with an editor's note "We apologize to our readers about being behind on publishing. In order to get us back on track, there will be 4 combined volumes published this year...v. 34 1/4 1999, v. 35 1/4 2000...." And yes, this does happen -- more than one would expect!
In addition, there are the journals with odd subscription years that inevitably get caught out during a renewal...One journal has its renewal period that starts in November for the next year. So when we pay our renewal for January-December, we sometimes miss issues for January and February because the publisher didn't receive our funds in time for their deadline (even though we have had an ongoing subscription to this title for 50 years+).
Some journals that we would like to cancel, we get stuck with for an additional year because of their cancellation policies "can only be cancelled during the beginning of a calendar year...can only be cancelled within 3 months of subscription....can only be cancelled prior to the academic year....etc."
With apologies to Robert Burns...:
Should auld journals be forgot,And never brought to mind ?Should auld journals be forgot,And days o' lang syne?
Another one of those things that is good in *theory* but not in practice.... at least it doesn't work *quite* that way in the world of serials.
Our library is now receiving January, February and March 2009 issues for some of our magazines....conversely, we just received one with the cover chronology of 2006.
Last week I received one with a cover chronology of 1999... What this means is that we've now paid for all of the extra years of those journals that have yet to be published and *hope* that they are published at some point.
Usually after 5 or 6 years our vendor puts a note on the relevant title "order when current" and merely holds on to the funds instead of sending them to the publisher. However, that has a problem all of its own. If the vendor does not realize that Journal XYZ has resumed publication (as they are wont to do) or has combined a bunch of years into one volume with an editor's note "We apologize to our readers about being behind on publishing. In order to get us back on track, there will be 4 combined volumes published this year...v. 34 1/4 1999, v. 35 1/4 2000...." And yes, this does happen -- more than one would expect!
In addition, there are the journals with odd subscription years that inevitably get caught out during a renewal...One journal has its renewal period that starts in November for the next year. So when we pay our renewal for January-December, we sometimes miss issues for January and February because the publisher didn't receive our funds in time for their deadline (even though we have had an ongoing subscription to this title for 50 years+).
Some journals that we would like to cancel, we get stuck with for an additional year because of their cancellation policies "can only be cancelled during the beginning of a calendar year...can only be cancelled within 3 months of subscription....can only be cancelled prior to the academic year....etc."
With apologies to Robert Burns...:
Should auld journals be forgot,And never brought to mind ?Should auld journals be forgot,And days o' lang syne?
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